Sir: Under the Ottoman Empire, according to your report , Christians, Jews and Muslims co-existed in peace and prosperity.

You fail to mention that Christians and Jews had the subordinate status of dhimmis forced upon them: they had to buy protection from their Muslim rulers by paying the jizya tax, which unlike the Muslim zakat was not voluntary, they had to adopt a submissive posture in the presence of Muslims, they were not allowed to repair their places of worship or proselytise, their men were not allowed to marry Muslim women, though Muslim men were allowed to marry Christian or Jewish women, and their houses and dress had to be modest in comparison with that of Muslims.

A weakened Ottoman Empire did abolish the jizya in 1856 under pressure from European nations, but observers continued to remark the downtrodden status of non-Muslims, and European pressure was not sufficient to prevent the Ottoman massacres of Lebanese Christians in 1840-60, and of Armenian Christians in 1894-6 and in 1915-17.

The myth of a tolerant Ottoman empire dates to the 19th century and was a European creation, designed to prevent Russia from expanding southwards under the pretext of protecting the Christian subjects of the Ottoman Empire.

DAVID J CRITCHLEY
WINSLOW, BUCKINGHAM

Financial crisis contributed greatly to the decline of the Ottoman Empire. Whether conscious decisions like the debasing of the currency system, or unconscious decisions like Sivis Year Crisis, the Empire was in financial peril which it projected onto it's minorities.